Bay View pickled foods have tickled consumers for 90 years

Stop in at a tavern up north and it will most likely have a pickled food item on the bar top. Most of the time, the wide jars are filled with cloudy liquid and floating shiny white eggs, almost creating a lava-lamp effect. Sometimes there's pickled sausages; sometimes there might even be pickled turkey gizzards.

For five generations, Reinhard Liebner's family has manufactured a large portion of the pickled offerings found in watering holes – and grocery stores, liquor stores, convenience stores and bait shops – across the state.

The business, called Bay View Packing, was formed in 1923 by brothers William, Walter and Bruno Liebner. Located in Menomonee Falls, the company was named after the view from the brothers' first office and has no relationship to Milwaukee's Bay View neighborhood.

Initially, Bay View pickled sauerkraut, herrings, pigs feet and pickles. Back then, these were staple items – not specialty foods or appetizers as they are now. Few people had a refrigerator, so pickled products were particularly popular.

Today, only the herring – all of which is Grade A – remains one of the company's offerings and comes in three different styles. One is made with a sweet and sour brine that includes a splash of wine and fresh onions. Another is packed in sour cream. "Rollmops" are also available, which are herring filets wrapped around a spiced, dill pickle and held together with a toothpick.

"It's hard for people to duplicate these the way we slice, trim and pack them. This is a product where our quality really shines through," he says.

Bay View items are available at many local bars including Wolski's, McKiernan's and The Corner Tap in Wauwatosa as well as grocery stores including Sendik's, Woodman's and Festival Foods. They range in price from about $3 to $8, depending on the jar size and the food item.

Bay View's 5,000-square foot manufacturing facility employs eight people. Liebner's eldest son is already on board with the business and he hopes his second son, who will start college this fall, will run the business with his brother after he graduates.

Liebner started helping out at Bay View by labeling and capping jars when he was six years old. He started working full time in 1986 and became the president of the company, replacing his father, in 1990.

Pickled products are more popular in rural areas than urban areas, Liebner says. They are particularly popular with campers, hunters and snowmobilers.

"The type of people who like our stuff are mostly outdoorsy, rural-type people," he says. "For many, it's a generational thing. They are used to seeing them around their whole lives."

Bay View is not automated by choice and has always valued humans trimming and packing the jars instead of machines.

"We haven't changed how things are done throughout the course of our history," he says.

Liebner says his family's business has been around for so many decades because they are committed to quality.

"We take a lot of pride in our work and have very high standards. There isn't anyone out there doing it the way we do. We're constantly tasting and trying to make sure the quality is where we want it to be."

One aspect of business that has changed is that the workers no longer boil and peel the eggs on-site anymore. Because Bay View needs 800 dozen eggs every week, it took one or two entire work days just to shell the eggs which wasn't time or cost effective.

If the egg was damaged in any way during the shelling process, it had to be discarded. Or consumed.

"I've eaten a lot of boiled eggs over the years," says Leibner.

Is he sick of his pickled products?

"I really don't get tired of it," says Leibner. "I eat the product just about every day. My family and I like to snowmobile up north and we usually bring some Polish or hocks when we go."

Talkbacks

Facebook Comments

Disclaimer: Please note that Facebook comments are posted through Facebook and cannot be approved, edited or declined by OnMilwaukee.com. The opinions expressed in Facebook comments do not necessarily reflect those of OnMilwaukee.com or its staff.

Related articles

Like you, we love the Klement`s Racing Sausages. But, the other day, while gazing down at the figures on a T-shirt celebrating 20 years of sal-seech, I wondered if a few of them couldn`t use a bit of a makeover and if the time is ripe for a sixth member of the meat-grinder gang.

Milwaukee`s homegrown sausage chain, The Dogg Haus, has reached an area development agreement with Minneapolis-based Freestyle Enterprises, LLC, to expand into the Minneapolis/St. Paul metropolitan area.

For three years, I was a proud member of the Milwaukee Brewers Brew Crew. The job mostly entails doing odd jobs of various levels of boredom around the stadium. But the main draw of the gig - other than getting essentially paid to go to games - was, every so often, getting to compete in the sixth inning Klements sausage race.